The Maryland History and Culture Bibliography
Breen, T. H. Tobacco Culture: The Mentality of the Great Tidewater Planters on the Eve of the Revolution. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985.
Categories: Agriculture, County and Local History, Eighteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Middleton, Authur Pierce. Tobacco Coast: A Maritime History of the Chesapeake Bay in the Colonial Era. Newport News, VA: Mariners Museum, 1953.
Categories: Agriculture, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Maritime, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Sarudy, Barbara Wells. "Eighteenth-Century Gardens of the Chesapeake." A special issue of the Journal of Garden History: An International Quarterly 9 (July-Sept. 1989): 103-59.
Categories: Agriculture, County and Local History, Eighteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Walsh, Lorena S. "Land, Landlord, and Leaseholder: Estate Management and Tenant Fortunes in Southern Maryland, 1642-1820." Agricultural History 59 (July 1985): 373-396.
Notes: Based on the astonishing records of a Jesuit-owned estate in Charles County that lasted for 175 years, Walsh examined 233 tenants, and the effect of their short term vs. long term leases on resource waste or conservation. The story explains how owners used leasing as a means for plantation development and as an alternative to slave labor.
Categories: African American, Agriculture, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Charles County, Calvert County, St. Mary's County, Chesapeake Region
Adler, Georgia. "How Distinctly I Now Recollect What Then Passed: The Journals of William E. Bartlett." Maryland Humanities (March/April 1994): 2-3.
Byron, Gilbert. Gilbert Byron's Chesapeake Seasons: A Cove Journal. Wye Mills, MD: Chesapeake College Press, 1987.
Notes: Poet and chronicler Gilbert Byron's columns were a popular feature in several Eastern Shore newspapers. This collection of observations and reminiscences culled from his newspaper writings are both biographical and lyrical in quality. Byron captures both an appreciation for a nostalgic past and an awareness of the social and economic changes occurring on his beloved shore.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Chesapeake Region
Carroll, Kenneth L. "The Berry Brothers of Talbot County, Maryland: Early Antislavery Leaders." Maryland Historical Magazine 84 (1989): 1-9.
Categories: African American, Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Seventeenth Century, Talbot County, Eastern Shore
Charbeneau, Jim. Shouts and Whispers: Stories from the Southern Chesapeake Bay. White Stone, VA: Brandylane Publishers, 1997.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Krech, Shepard, III. Praise the Bridge That Carries You Over: The Life of Joseph L. Sutton. Boston: G. K. Hall and Co. (cloth); Cambridge, MD: Chenkman Publishing Co. (paper), 1981.
Notes: Biography of a black resident of Miles River Neck in Talbot County. Based on extensive oral history interviews, this personal narrative by a long-time Talbot County resident offers a unique look at the life of African Americans on the Eastern Shore. Joseph Sutton (1885-1980) led a long and eventful life, and his reminiscences are rich in personal detail. In addition to his own experiences, Sutton's words are a valuable source for understanding the personal impact of racism on African Americans.
Categories: African American, Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Twentieth Century, Talbot County
"Meet Talbot's Delegates." Historical Society of Talbot County Newsletter (Fall 1987): 1-2.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Politics and Law, Twentieth Century, Talbot County, Eastern Shore
Parker, Willie J. Game Warden: Chesapeake Assignment. Centreville, MD: Tidewater Publishers, 1983.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Environment, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Preston, Dickson J. Young Frederick Douglass: The Maryland Years. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980.
Notes: There are a number of excellent biographies of Frederick Douglass including works by Eric Foner, William McFeeley and Benjamin Quarles. For the student of Maryland history, Preston's short but well-researched book focuses on the first twenty years of Douglass' life spent in Talbot County and Baltimore City. His experiences as a slave in Maryland shaped his subsequent career and thus are critical to understanding one of the greatest spokesmen for human rights.
Categories: African American, Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, Nineteenth Century, Baltimore City, Talbot County
Turner, William H. Chesapeake Boyhood: Memoirs of a Farm Boy. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.
Categories: Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Twentieth Century, Chesapeake Region
Clemens, Paul G.E. The Atlantic Economy and Colonial Maryland's Eastern Shore: From Tobacco to Grain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1980.
Categories: African American, Agriculture, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Kent County, Queen Anne's County, Talbot County, Eastern Shore, Eighteenth Century
Davidson, Thomas E. "Jacob Armstrong: Pioneer Black Capitalist on Maryland's Eastern Shore." Maryland Pendulum 4 (1986): 4-6.
Categories: African American, Biography, Autobiography, and Reminiscences, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore
Fields, Barbara Jeanne. Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland during the Nineteenth Century. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1985.
Notes: The author explores how free populations in Maryland - both black and white - challenged the notion of a slave society. The free black population, very much interconnected with the slave population in terms of kinship ties, also provided a threat to the underpinnings of the system. Once freedom arrived, social relationships also had to be redefined. The author writes that "free blacks did not occupy a unique or legitimate place within Maryland society, but instead formed an anomalous adjunct to the slave population" (3). By 1840, free blacks in Maryland composed 41% of the total black population of the state, or the largest free black population of any state in the nation.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Economic, Business, and Labor History, Politics and Law, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Harvey, Lamont W. "Black Oystermen of the Bay Country... particularly St. Michaels, Maryland." Weather Gauge 30 (Spring 1994): 4-13.
Heinegg, Paul. Free African Americans of Maryland and Delaware: From the Colonial Period to 1810. Baltimore: Clearfield, 2000.
Categories: African American, Family History and Genealogy, Seventeenth Century, Eighteenth Century, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Johansen, Mary Carroll. "'Intelligence, Though Overlooked:' Education for Black Women in the Upper South, 1800-1840." Maryland Historical Magazine 93 (Winter 1998): 443-65.
Notes: Black and white educators established forty-six schools for free black children in the early nineteenth century. These educators supported education for black women believing that women transmitted knowledge and morals, thus shaping a generation of virtuous citizens. In addition, educators looked to education as a means by which to form self-sufficient and industrious free black communities.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Education, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Women, Nineteenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Nelson, Jack E. "Black Pearl of the Chesapeake." Chesapeake Bay Magazine 23 (November 1993): 24-27.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Chesapeake Region
"Selected Readings on Afro-Americans and Maryland's Eastern Shore." Maryland Pendulum 5 (Fall/Winter 1985): 6-7.
Categories: African American, Intellectual Life, Literature, and Publishing, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore
Tate, Thad W. "The Seventeenth-Century Chesapeake and Its Modern Historians." In The Chesapeake in the Seventeeth Century: Essays on Anglo-American Society. Thad W. Tate and David L. Ammerman eds., 3-50. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.
Categories: General, African American, Seventeenth Century, Chesapeake Region
Wilson, Emily Wanda. The Public Education of Negroes on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. M.A. thesis, Howard University, 1948.
Categories: African American, Education, Nineteenth Century, Twentieth Century, Caroline County, Cecil County, Dorchester County, Queen Anne's County, Somerset County, Talbot County, Wicomico County, Worcester County, Eastern Shore
Yentsch, Anne. "Hot, Nourishing, and Culturally Potent: The Transfer of West African Cooking Traditions to the Chesapeake." Sage 9 (Summer 1995): 15-29.
Categories: African American, County and Local History, Ethnic History, Society, Social Change, Folklife, and Popular Culture, Chesapeake Region
Bodenstein, William G. "St. Michael's, Maryland: An 18^th Century Speculative Development." Maryland Historical Magazine 80 (Fall 1985): 228-239.
Categories: Architecture, Historic Preservation, and Town Planning, Eighteenth Century, Talbot County